Last week at work, I had some business with different people in-house. I needed to call lots of people, and getting a hold of them was tricky, since many of them are on vacation. So I called the receptionist several times to require her help finding the right numbers to call, finding out their work schedules and so. Spending so much time on the phone with this unknown receptionist, who had a very sweet voice, I started to connect with her, and after a while I even sensed some IOIs over the phone. I had made my very first phone approach.

However, this Thursday, I was gonna hand in my letter of resignation, because I'm moving on to finish my studies in two months. So I called the receptionist to ask her whether there was anyone in at the human recourses department. She gave me a few names, and I said "no, I don't think they can help me with this particular matter", so she asked me about what the particular matter was. "I'm going to resign", I said, which led to a conversation on a more personal level. After talking for a while, she found me the appropriate person, gave me her number and wished me good luck.

IRL approach and #-close

After work, I thought "why not swing by the reception just to see if she's as pretty as she sounds sweet?". So I did. And yes, she was cute. So we talked for about 15 minutes and I number closed her like this:

"Hey, I'm gonna miss calling you with all my work-related problems in the future, you've been doing a great job. How about I hire you as my personal directory assistance?"
Her: (smiling) "Yeah, sure. What's the salary?"
Me: "Nothing. Nothing at all."
Her: "That's OK." (still smiling)
Me: "OK, so in order to be able to require your services, I'm gonna need to take your number."

I handed her the phone and she typed her number in.

Day 2 begins

On Friday, I proposed an after work, and she was all for it. However, just before she quit for the day, she texted me saying that she wasn't feeling well, but she proposed another time and place for Saturday (yesterday). So I met her at a coffee place yesterday night. After about 45 minutes we went to a bar where a friend of hers was gonna play with her band.

We got a good connection, and I instantly felt that comfort was good. Building attraction was going well to start with. I used some routines on her, like the cube which didn't go very well, but I managed to find the bits that she agreed on and elaborate on them. I think she got the impression that I really could read her. I also picked up on any insecurity whenever she said something and gave anything away. I feel like this really helps sometimes.

However, kino wasn't really advancing, and since we where in no mans land when it came to kino when the band started playing, it all turned into an AFC movie-date equivalent. It was really hard to keep any kind of conversation up during the gig, and I had no kino platform to escalate from. I think that, if I had established a sexual kino connection, the gig could have been a good opportunity to escalate that or just snuggle through the gig. Making a note of that, this is probably an important logistics consideration.

After the gig, we talked to the band for a while, then agreed to meet them at another bar later. In the meantime, we decided to go for a walk, the two of us. This is when things really started to look stale. No kino (well, I tried, but I got no response) and conversation went dry. I took her to a bar on a river boat by the pier, and we sat there talking, with no drinks in hand. Some kind of connection again, but it was lost when we moved back to the bar where we'd meet the others.

I felt that meeting the others would be a good opportunity to DHV a bit and get away from the gone-bad conversation, maybe even freezing her out a bit. Unfortunately, we didn't find them. So we sat down just the two of us, and I struggled to keep the conversation going. It was evident that she was very tired, she had been talking previously about how she had to go soon, and I figured we'd just call it a night. I was giving up. But when I proposed that we'd leave the place, she said "well, I really enjoy this conversation, lets stay for a little longer".

I hadn't really noticed how well it had worked, but I had made an attempt changing the subject to the sex appeal of different famous men. The routine was something like this:

Mungo's male sex-appeal routine

"You know how many men say that they can't see if another man is good looking? That's bullshit. The very same men will hold on extra tight to their girlfriends when a hot male walks by, because they see that he's hot and feel threatened by him. So they DO see beauty in other men. It's just that there is a difference between noticing someone's beauty and being attracted to them. Like that guy over there, I can see that he looks good, but I don't feel attracted to him because I just don't swing that way. However, I see no point in lying to myself about the fact that I find him good looking. I might even say that I'm attracted by the beauty of some men. Take Brad Pitt, for example. He's the kind of guy that everyone wants to hang out with, even if it was only for his looks. So, yes, I'm attracted to his looks. But this doesn't mean that I'm SEXUALLY attracted to him. That's yet another distinction that people tend to overlook. But OK, there may be one man in the world who I might be a little bit sexually attracted to: Johnny Depp. I mean, hey, just the bragging rights - being able to say 'I slept with Johnny Depp', imagine that. And he actually intrigues me.. Wouldn't you sleep with him any day of the week?"

And from there you've got a conversation going. I've used this sometimes, and it works pretty well. It might actually work as an opinion opener too, bit this time I used it for a conversation saver, and it seemed to work. All of a sudden, she IOIed the hell out of me, we got good eye contact, she started leaning in and touching her hair, and I was in, baby!

Being LJBFed

After a while, we left and I walked her home. The walk was pretty much like before, I wasn't able to close anything or build off the attraction that was present after my conversation saver. When we reached her doorstep, I stepped closer to her as for a kiss, but she went for the hug. Awkward, yes. Said goodbye, and went off. Then she said "hey, I wanna talk about something", I turned around and she started delivering a little speech.

I didn't recognize the LJBF speech when I saw it. I thought she was saying that she wants to see me again and that she wants to take things slow, giving me the impression that she was the prude LTR kind of girl, which is not where I want things to go. So I was desperately thinking about how to steer the conversation into an agreement that we'd just go with it and keep any kind of attachment out of it, but I didn't know how to. Anyway, before I got there, she ended her speech with awkwardly saying "so.. maybe you can be my friend?".

Aargh! I was actually surprised, but immediately started beating myself up for not seeing it coming. And not having been in this situation before (I'm pretty new to the game and haven't been out on many dates with someone I haven't already kissed. I have never been explicitly LJBFed before) I didn't know what to say. All I said was "it would be nice to see you again", which is really AFC and too compliant with her turning the events. The I said "hey, good night", gave her another hug and went off.

Is it too late?

I know I should have said something like "I have lots of friends already. All I know is I don't need another friend, and I'm not really looking for a girlfriend. You can't be any of those, but I'd still like to see you again sometime". I'm thinking if maybe I can try to save this by sending her a text saying something like that. It's probably too late, but what's my best chance of saving this?

Any help is much appreciated, as are any comments on the rest of the above.

Yours,
Mungo

Edit: Cross posted my sex-appeal routine in this thread: here-vp376726.html#376726